Sunday, December 2, 2018

Violinist Adé Williams
plays "The Birthday Party Waltz," by African-American composer Horace
Weston (1825–1890) with pianist Milana Pavchinskaya. It is one of the
pieces in Music By Black Composers, Violin Vol. 1.

Do you know
of a piece by a Black composer that my child could learn? Or that I
could play for my recital? Or that my beginning student could learn?

These are the types of questions that violinist Rachel Barton Pine started receiving after recording Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th & 19th Centuries
back in 1997. She could see that her album was helping unlock a new
level of interest in violin music written by Black composers, but at the
time, she did not have a lot of answers.

"I just didn't know yet what existed," Pine said, "this was the extent of my repertoire, these four pieces on the CD."

Now, after a major 15-year effort involving the talents, input and research of many experts on the subject, Pine has compiled and confirmed a list of 350 Black composers, as well as more than 900 works by those composers.

She also has an answer for students who wish to learn music by Black composers: Music By Black Composers, Violin Volume I,
a book of sheet music that was just released this fall. The book, meant
for students at a Suzuki Book 1-2 playing level, is the first in a
violin series expected to include eight volumes, going from from
beginner to advanced concerto playing level. Volume 1 includes 22 works
for violin by 16 Black composers, each with accompaniment, with both a
second violin duet part and piano accompaniment. Audio and video
recordings are available on the Music by Black Composers website (click here)
for every work in the book. The works span the years 1767 through 2014,
with Black composers from the United States, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Cuba,
Ghana, Nigeria, Switzerland, France, and England.

The book is part of the Music By Black Composers (MBC)
project, an initiative developed by the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation
that aims to bring greater diversity to the ranks of classical music
performers, composers, and audiences by making the music of Black
composers easily available to all.

"In the 15 years since we first
conceptualized Music by Black Composers, we have had the opportunity to
speak with many Black musicians about the importance of role models in
the arts," Pine said. "Even today, many aspiring Black students live in a
community where their particular town’s orchestra may not even have a
single player of color in it or leading it. As much as they may love the
music, they don’t see a future for themselves. Our goal is to present a
variety of Black leaders representing professions in the classical
sphere, so that young people may consider the different avenues they may
take in music and see someone who looks like them in that role."

To that end, Violin Volume 1 contains not only biographies of each
composer, but it also features articles about Black orchestras past and
present and about famous African Americans who played violin. (Who knew
that Solomon Northup, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver,
Coretta Scott King and Sheila Johnson all played the violin?) It also
includes profiles of three Black role models in classical music: Sphinx
founder Aaron P. Dworkin, Chicago-based teacher and performer Lucinda Ali-Landing, and concert violinist Tai Murray.

While
putting this project together, Pine's team did a statistical survey of
top methods for violin, including private methods and school methods.
Looking through 12 curricula, they found no works of concert music by
black composers; they found only spirituals as folk music. They also
found nearly no works by women, and little art music from anywhere but
Europe. When it came to the little they found from elsewhere, "the books
reflected almost a colonialist attitude," she said, for example,
labeling a melody "Filipino tune."

Pine is pleased that the Music
by Black Composers Violin Book 1 is also diverse in terms of including
women composers, including art music from all over the globe, and
including a mix of 18th-, 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century works.

"In terms of a lot of definitions of diversity, beyond Black composers, our curriculum meets that as well," Pine said.

How exactly did this project come about, and how did Rachel Barton Pine wind up spearheading it?

"It
all started in 1992, when I was concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of
Chicago," Pine said. "I was 17 years old, and at the time Michael
Morgan was the assistant conductor of the Chicago Symphony and principal
conductor of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago."

Chicago also happens to be home of The Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College
(CBMR), which Pine describes as "the premiere research organization
that looks into music from Africa and the African diaspora - not only
classical, but every kind of music you could think of."

That year, CBMR collaborated with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago on a special all-Black composers concert.

As
concertmaster, "I was asked to give the modern-day world premiere of a
concerto by an Afro-French composer which hadn't been played since the
1700s," Pine said. It was by Chevalier de Meude-Monpas, and "it was
absolutely charming, catchy and appealing, just a great piece."

Several
years later, when she decided to explore the idea of making a CD of
concertos by Black Composers, the Meude-Monpas was foremost in her mind.
But she wanted to find more, and that meant doing more research --
something Pine greatly enjoys.

"So I went over to CBMR, and as I was walking down the hallway to the
stacks of music, I saw a big portrait on the wall, a replica of the
famous painting of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges,
the 1700's Afro-French composer, born on the island of Guadeloupe, who
was originally referred to as 'Le Mozart Noir' -- the 'Black Mozart.'"

The "Black Mozart"?

"You know that is a little bit of an incorrect designation, now that I think about it," she added, "because (Saint-Georges') Sinfonias Concertantes directly inspired Mozart to write his 'Sinfonia Concertante.' So Mozart should have been the 'White Saint-Georges'!"

At
any rate, when she saw the picture of Chevalier de Saint-Georges in his
powdered wig, sword in one hand and violin and music behind him, in her
mind, she also saw an album cover. The four concertos she chose for her
album were written by Saint-Georges, Joseph White, Samuel
Coleridge-Taylor, and then the Chevalier de Meude-Monpas she had played
years before.

But there was one problem. "For decades the leading
Black music researchers had considered (Meude-Monpas) to be among the
composers of African descent, because his name, in historic records, was
always followed by 'le Noir,'" Pine said. "After my album came out,
further research uncovered the fact that had been in a regiment of the
French army that all rode black horses, and so the 'le Noir' referred to
his mount, rather than his ethnicity! So he's not a Black composer at
all, and ironically he's the one who started my whole journey!"

Because
of that album, Pine found that she was suddenly being asked to sit on
diversity panels and to participate in the conversation about Black
music and artists. She started learning about advocacy, research and
performance from people such as Michael Morgan; Chicago Sinfonietta founder and conductor Paul Freeman; Center for Black Music Research scholar Sam Floyd; musicologist Dominique-René de Lerma and Sphinx Organization founder Aaron Dworkin.